A City Girl Gardens Week 1: Anything is Possible

This will be my third season gardening, and this time I intend to do it right. I am starting to suspect that gardening has a lot in common with writing a novel. Lofty intentions meet reality right around mid July. And even while you begin enjoying the fruits of your labors, there are weeds that you never did get around to plucking.

I love the precision with which seed packets are written. The Tyee Spinach I just planted indicates that it should be sewn under 1/4 inch of soil, spaced at 1/2 inch apart. Perhaps one of the seeds I scattered now sits under 1/4" of soil, but only by happenstance. It is possible to buy a plastic device which will help you in this endeavor. It costs $1.97, plus shipping. But I'm not a girl who goes by the book. I wing it. (And it often shows.) I do read the book before I fling it aside. So I happen to know that seeds which are meant to be planted under very little soil need to see a little sunlight to start their germination. So I have not sunk these tender spinach seeds to China. 

The peas I started are another story. 1-2" on those. The last two years I have been hoodwinked by pea varieties that swear to not need support. This always proves false, and the peas plants lie snarled on the ground, their little tendrils reaching out, pathetically, for strong arms to hold them.

This year I wised up and planted the peas against the side of the barn. I'm going to trellis them on yarn I'm stringing from nails I pounded in. Yes, that sounds ugly. But the husband has forbidden me to use anymore invisible fishing line in my gardening endeavors. He's tired of detangling it from his mower blades.

Lastly, I've been pruning our copious wild blackberries. Let's say I don't exactly know what I'm doing here, but when the canes stand so tightly together that reaching the ripe fruit is impossible, there is quite a bit of guiltless hacking a girl can stomach. Sweating in my husband's burly man gloves, I snipped and snipped. I now have a giant pile of brambles with an uncertain future, a few scrapes, and a somewhat tidier blackberry patch. As with everything in life, there's surely more to be done.

How to Pick Blackberries in Your Yard

First, buy a property that's been allowed to grow wild for some years.  Then, become overwhelmed with moving, writing, parenting and life for a year or so, and ignore the problem. In early spring, when you notice that the blackberry patch has encroached on your ability to reach the compost pile behind the barn, take a pair of snips and hack down a lot of the canes.  Cut anything that's dead, or in your way or leaning over. We'll call that pruning.

Ignore the blackberry patch further. Don't use any commercial fertilizer, don't bother with mulch, and don't stake up the plants.  This style of cultivation is called uber lazy hyper organic.

When the plants flower, take a few pretty pictures, wave to the bees and other little pollinators and step aside. It's okay to actually curse the blackberry plants a little bit.  You'll want to, because they spring up in your tomato garden, in your driveway, and even through the boards of your deck. They are weeds, and they have thorns.

When beautiful black purple fruit matures, put on old clothes. I literally used a tee shirt from my rag pile. Choose long sleeves even though it's hot outside, because it's better for those thorns to prick your shirt than your arm. Don't forget socks.

It's so quiet where I live that when I put my little cardboard quart container on the grass, I can hear the little blades bending underneath its weight.  Pick only the darkest berries (this photo is pretty but somehow makes my berries look underripe, which they are not.) And if a berry looks tight and skinny, leave that one until tomorrow too.

Pick every day.  Eat.  Enjoy.